Coming of Age (And Other Things)
by IronSparrow99
Summary: You only turn twenty-one once, they say. And when your father's an almost-alcoholic, you'd better believe that party's going to be big. So now we eat, drink, and be merry (and drunk). Whatever happens tonight, there will be no stopping any of it. *Two-shot* *Beta 'verse*
1. Last Night

"Why is this necessary again?" I whine.

"Because," Natasha sighs exasperatedly, "We're going out to a club and you can't show up in a t-shirt and jeans, I don't care how rich you are."

"But I have dresses," I argue. "We don't need to be here." I glance around nervously at the racks upon racks of clothing.

"You have dresses for work and work parties," Betty corrects from behind me, holding a dress up and giving it a once-over before shaking her head and putting it back. "Those are either business formal or red carpet chic. You've never been clubbing, so that's why we're here: so we can impart our experience and wisdom onto those younger than us."

"You realize that we're not that much younger than you two, right?" Darcy protests as Jane rolls her eyes.

I give a derisive snort but allow myself to be marched off to the fitting rooms, Natasha hanging up ten dresses before going to wait outside.

I sigh as I begin undressing. To be fair, they had a point: I had never been to a club before, other than to drag my dad home, and I _did_ want to look good, and Clint would be there, of course…

It wasn't every day you turned twenty-one.

And, hey, I was a _girl_ , okay? I was allowed to look good sometimes. Sue me.

(…actually, don't. Dad nearly killed me the last time someone took that literally. Japanese business men don't understand sarcasm.)

"Taylor? Everything okay?"

I startle, slamming my heel back into the wall and hissing out curses before replying, "Fine, Tasha," and grabbing the first dress.

I slip into it easily enough, pushing the curtain aside and stepping out of the dressing room.

Natasha is looking cool as a cucumber, flipping through a beauty magazine until I step out. "Spin."

I do a 180-degree turn, the chiffon skirt of the dress fanning out around me. "So?"

"What do _you_ think?" Jane asks instead of answering, her head tilted slightly, like a dog's.

"Um…" I look down at myself. "It's a bit short," I admit, tugging nervously on the hemline of the dress, which only reached about mid-thigh.

"Oh, come on," Darcy groans. "Don't choose _now_ to be embarrassed. You're far from a nun. You really only have one thing in common with them, anyways."

My cheeks burn at that implication, but I ignore Darcy as Jane begins to speak in a gentler tone.

"Taylor, they're all going to be like that. You can always wear something different, if you'd like…"

I shake my head, letting go of the hem. "I'm good – stepping out of my comfort zone, right?"

"Good." Natasha nods. "Now go try on the next one."

I sigh and retreat behind the curtain again.

.

The girls picked out ten dresses. Nine of those were failures – I either looked like a hooker, a ghost, or something equally unappealing because orange, yellow, and pink do not like me.

I'm left staring at the dress at the bottom of the stack – my last hope before I'm dragged off to yet another shop for even more torture.

I slip it on quickly, finding that it was still slightly short but ignoring that as I stepped out again.

Their reaction is a bit…different.

"Proklyataya devchenka."

" _Daaaamn."_

"Whoa."

"It's a _girl_!"

I roll my eyes at all of them, but can't quite keep the grin off my face. "So…what do you think?"

"Turn around and see for yourself," Natasha orders.

I turn to face the floor-to-ceiling mirror that adorned the wall behind me, and my eyes widen as I take in my own appearance.

Dress #10 is form-fitting and shows off all my curves and my legs, but not to the point of being too tight; a nice reddish-purple that has just enough blue to not look pink. It's got wider straps that come to a point where silver fastenings (that were probably for nothing more than decoration) attached it to the main dress. It ended about four inches above my thigh, but I didn't feel as exposed as I had before.

I felt…powerful. Not the dangerous type of power that came with my job description(s), but more of a 'you got this, girl!' type of power.

I felt…grown up.

And _that_ was scary.

I swallow slowly and turn around to face my entourage with a single nod. "Let's do this."

The dress is bought and packaged, and I call Happy, who had been waiting for us to finish so he could take us back home.

"What do you think the guys are up to?" Betty asks, all of sudden, on the way home.

I shrug from my spot leaning against the car window. "Guy stuff?"

"Well, _yeah_ ," Darcy rolls her eyes. "But do you think they're trying on tuxes?"

"No, because no one's getting married," I sigh exasperatedly. "Really, this is just like my birthday last year. No big deal."

"It is too!" the SI Social Media Consultant argues. "You're legal now – this opens up a whole new world of possibilities! Nobody knows what might happen tonight."

"I'll get a little drunk, have fun with my friends, and go home." I shrug. "That's it."

"With your genes, you'll probably do much more than that," Natasha points out. "And you're telling me that Clint's gonna be there, and you're both gonna be drunk, and you're _not_ going to take the chance to jump him?"

I feel my cheeks heat up again as I glare at her, hissing out a breath from between my clenched teeth. _"No."_

"Why _not_?" Betty interjects. "It's been three years – I've known couples that were married after that long."

"Shut up," I hiss. "Can we please stop discussing my sex life? Thank you."

They drop the topic – for now, anyways – and did they _really_ think I didn't the bets being established?

The rest of the ride home is pretty quiet, save for the occasional nail tutorial being suggested (and shot down).

We arrive at the Tower in no time, and I tip Happy even though I don't need to before we make our way into the back entrance of the lobby so as to avoid the press sharks.

" _Good afternoon, ma'am,"_ Jarvis greets us. _"Sir asked me to inform you that Misters Barton and Odinson, Dr. Banner, Sergeant Barnes, Captain Rogers, and himself have gone shopping for their attire for the party and should return around six o'clock this afternoon."_

"That's three hours away!" Betty exclaims. "How long does it take six guys to get clothes?"

"You've never been clothes shopping with my dad," I quip. "Or Steve, Bucky, and Thor, whose measurements, I'm sure, are impossible."

"Thor is a bit hard to clothe," Jane admits as we all crowd into the elevator, pressing the button for Natasha's floor. "But I don't really mind either way."

I roll my eyes at her. "Subtlety is not your strong suit."

"It never was."

Forty-five minutes later, we're all lounging around Natasha's living room with a bad horror movie playing and pints of Ben & Jerry's are being passed around.

"Shouldn't you be watching your girlish figure if you want to fit into that dress?" Betty asks innocently – also hypocritically, because she was digging into her Cake Batter ice cream and her dress was just as tight as mine.

I ever-so-eloquently flip her off, plopping down with my own container of Brownie Batter Core. "See, why can't we just do this all night? Why can't all my birthdays be like this?"

"Because you need to _live_ a little," Jane stresses. "And this is coming from the world's biggest introvert. Even I've been clubbing once or twice, mainly in college."

"You're older than I am?" I try.

"Only by eight years," she counters. "You only turn 21 once."

"And you _have_ to celebrate!" Darcy whines. "I purposefully didn't do anything in January because I wanted to celebrate with you."

"Sparky…"

"Come _on,_ cupcake, _please_?" she rolls over to give me her best puppy-dog eyes. You'd think that after living with her for almost a year and a half, I'd be used to them by now.

And you'd be wrong.

"Alright, I'll give it a try. Just stop looking at me like that," I huff. Darcy gives a whoop, flinging her spoon in the air before scrambling up and running off towards the bathroom.

I exchange confused looks with the other three, but Darcy bursts back into the room with a gigantic container of nail polishes.

She sets the boxes down and almost immediately starts unpacking little glass bottles. "Come on, we've got work to do."

.

Three hours later, the movie is over and the ice cream is all gone, but we've all got pretty nails.

Natasha went for an odd black and white combination, but she explained that if the club had black lights, they'd glow in the dark.

Betty went with a pretty copper color that complimented her eyes with gold dots on the upper edge of her nail; we hadn't been allowed to see her dress yet – she went shopping a few days ago, privately – but Betty knew what she was doing, so we all just went along with the flow.

Jane's nails were a vibrant, electric blue with a blue glitter topcoat that nobody expected of her. Our soft, meek little Jane was capable of bold statements and colors? Although, she _did_ slap Thor once, a few years ago, so…

Last, but never least, Darcy had painted her nails an outrageous neon orange – it was bright, sure, but it matched both her dress and her personality, and the bottle said it glows in the dark, so that would be fun.

Personally I hadn't added any color, just a clear coat of polish topped with some tiny, adhesive rhinestones that made my nails sparkle in the right light.

" _Madams, Sir would like me to inform me that everyone has arrived back from their excursions and are on their way up."_

"Cool, J," I grunt from where I'm painting my toes with a silver glitter coat. "We're all decent."

"I don't think that'd stop them, either way," Natasha quips, and I pause to roll my eyes before going back to my toes.

The elevator dings and out walks Dad, Thor, Bruce, Steve, and Bucky, all chattering intensely about something.

"Hey," I greet. "Where's-"

Something moves out of the corner of my eye and the couch bounces suddenly it's new load. _Thank god all the couches in this place are reinforced._ "I should've known," I sigh, turning to face Clint. "Hi."

"Hi yourself," he grins. "Pretty nails."

"Thank you," I grin, batting his hands away. "No touchie, or they'll get smudged later."

"I see how it is," he sighs dramatically, drawing his hands back. "I get no love."

"You can touch later," I huff.

"Just your nails?" he asks innocently, and my cheeks burn as I cuff him over the head.

"So sorry to interrupt this touching moment," Dad says, not sounding all too apologetic, "but we have 45 minutes until we wanted to be at the club and I figured the ladies needed time to get dolled up."

"We're not getting 'dolled up'," Natasha corrects. "We're going to look like badasses when we're done."

"I look forward to it," Dad grins before turning on his heel and walking back into the elevator, the rest of the guys following him and Clint disappears back into the vents.

Natasha is the first to break the silence by getting up. "Alrighty then, come on. We've got clothes and makeup to put on."

We all scatter into the various rooms on the floor to change, each one of us grabbing our respective garment bags and before going off to change.

I slipped into my dress with little trouble, amazed that I managed to zip my own dress up – with only mild contortionism.

I do all the necessary adjustments, tugging and untwisting where necessary, before giving myself one last check and stepping back into the living room.

"You look hot," Darcy praises from where she's digging through her bag, probably for her makeup kit. "If I weren't straight, I'd totally be all over you right now."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," I muse as I grab the shoebox containing my heels before ducking into the master bathroom.

Because Natasha, like everyone else in the Tower, had an enormous bathroom, we were all able to do our makeup at once.

"You look like a million bucks," Betty mutters from where she's putting on her mascara.

"So I've been told," I laugh as I pick out a foundation. "Although Darcy was a bit more brash."

"Did she hit on you again?" Jane asks, entering the room behind us. "I told her not to do that."

"It's not like it's the first time I've been hit on, by girls or guys," I point out. "I'm used to it."

"Yeah, it's only been what, twenty years?" Natasha teases, having entered silently.

I startle slightly, the eyeliner pencil slipping and creating a wild line on my eyelid. "Damn it, Natasha," I swear, grabbing a makeup removal pad. "Knock."

"Sorry," she apologizes, coming up next to me with her own makeup bag and taking out all the necessary materials for smoky eyes.

I just sigh and return to tracing my eyes.

It takes the next forty minutes us all to get our makeup and hair perfect, even though the most complex piece of makeup is Natasha's (perfect) smoky eyes.

I sit down on the massive bed and take my heels out – four inch monsters, a dark eggplant purple with thin straps from ankle to toe, studded with small purple rhinestones. I get them on with a practiced ease – I've been wearing heels since I was twelve or so (don't judge) – and stand to give myself a moment to adjust before walking out to meet the others, who have by now gathered in the living room.

I'm not the only one that cleans up well.

Natasha's keeping with her black-and-white theme in a short, black-and-white diagonally striped dress with one studded, thin white shoulder strap and black heels. Betty's wearing a backless copper glittery dress, a network of crisscrossed straps forming a pseudo-back. She's wearing copper flats – lucky. Jane's wearing a traditional electric blue halter-top dress and some matching platform wedges – nothing fancy. Darcy, then, is her complete opposite, neon orange dress, nails, and heels – I'm pretty sure she was trying to blind everyone.

But hey, that's Darcy for you.

"Are we ready?" Natasha asks the group as a whole.

Confirmations come from all over the room, so Natasha leads our little posse – we click like a swarm of angry crabs – into the elevator and down to the lobby, where we're meeting our male counterparts.

My breath stutters when I see my boyfriend. It always does that.

He's wearing a light grey t-shirt with a black leather jacket and black jeans, along with Converse that matched his shirt. His hair is freshly gelled – spiked up a little, but only in front, in an almost half-faux-hawk look.

Dad was wearing a deep red long-sleeve button down with lighter, more worn jeans and red Vans; Bucky had a red, long-sleeve t-shirt on with holey, washed-out jeans and a black vest; Steve essentially copied his look, except _his_ shirt was blue; and Bruce – who I knew wouldn't be doing much tonight but came along because it was my birthday – was wearing a light purple t-shirt with tan jeans and a black denim jacket. (He exuded 'cool professor'.)

And they all froze when they saw us.

I'm the first to break the silence, clicking over to stand in front of Clint. "Hi."

"Hi," he stutters. "You look…amazing."

"Thank you," I grin, then look around at the other couples in the room – Betty was kissing Bruce, Jane was laughing at something Thor said, Steve and Bucky were looking awkward as ever, Natasha smiling at my dad…

Wait.

I blink and the smile's gone, Natasha's looking suave as I'd ever seen her. _That was odd,_ my subconscious whispers. _I might be seeing things._

"Taylor."

I snap my head back over to Clint, who was giving me an amused look. "Where were you?"

I shrug. "What did I miss?"

"Only everyone else leaving."

I look around again to find that we are – other than the receptionist – the only ones still in the lobby.

"Everyone else is in the limo," he continues, holding out a hand. "Come on, birthday girl."

I blush and take his hand, intertwining our calloused fingers as he leads me out the door to where the shiny black limousine was waiting. Clint even held open the door for me, and I didn't complain.

Tonight really _was_ special.

The club we were going to, which Dad had picked out a week earlier, was called Mission NYC – good food, good music, good alcohol, low creeper factor; the perfect introduction into the world of nightclubs…or so Dad said.

The limo pulls to a stop, and Dad quickly gets out, opens my door, and escorts me inside, cutting a swath through the crowd of cameras, Clint and Natasha just behind us with everyone else trailing them.

Dad had reserved us a table for twelve: me at the head, and then clockwise it was Natasha, Dad, Bruce, Betty, Jane, Thor, Darcy, Steve, Bucky, and Clint, who was to my left.

We're all seated in a matter of moments, and a waitress immediately comes over to hands out menus. I scan down the drink menu, recognizing the harder drinks – scotch, whiskey, vodka, and the like – because they were what my dad and Natasha drank; other than that, I was lost.

I purse my lips and look at my dad for help.

He gives me a helpless look. "Unless you want to drink scotch or a martini, I'm really no good." He shrugs. "Sorry."

I sigh and turn to Natasha, raising an eyebrow. She nods, studies me for a moment, then decides, "You're getting a Mai Tai. Rum, lime juice, Polynesian liquor. You'll love it, trust me."

I shrug again and pick up the menu again to order my food.

When the waitress shows up again, I order a Mai Tai, Dad gets a Rum & Coke, Natasha orders a Cosmopolitan, Bruce orders a ginger ale, determined to stay sober; Betty ordered a Mudslide martini, Jane ordered a Lemon Drop martini, Thor ordered a pale ale (which was apparently the closest thing we Midgardians had to mead), Darcy took a leap of faith and ordered a dirty martini, which looked both incredibly strong and tart as hell; Steve and Bucky both went for flavor over alcohol content, Steve ordering a Screwdriver while Bucky went for a Hurricane. Clint ordered a Long Island Iced Tea, which sounded incredibly potent.

Once the drinks are served, Dad speaks up before anyone can drink. "I'd like to propose a toast…"

I groan internally. _No, please…_

"I'd like to propose a toast," Dad repeats, meeting my eyes with his own, a mischievous glint held within them. "To a brilliant mind, a wonderful person, and a badass businesswoman…"

"Not to mention a beautiful girlfriend," Clint interjects, and my blush just darkens.

"An amazing sibling," Bucky adds with a dramatic wink in my direction.

"The best teammate anyone could ask for," Steve adds with a grin.

"And a good kid, even though she technically isn't a kid anymore," Dad concludes. "Happy birthday, kiddo. Cheers!"

"Cheers!" Everyone echoes, clinking glasses together before taking a sip of their respective drinks.

"You'd think you guys planned that," I mutter around the rim of my glass – after almost chocking on the first sip, of course.

"Nah, we're just that good," Darcy scoffs. "Duh."

I shake my head, poking at the cherry garnish on my drink as the waitress comes back around with our food.

Once we're all finished eating (but by no means done drinking), the club kicks the party into high gear. I allow Darcy to drag me onto the dance floor as the music kicks up, even though I can't dance – normally, anyways.

I have to admit that despite all my earlier complaining, I was having the most fun I'd had in…a while. At least. I couldn't really remember.

Anyways, being drunk was _awesome._ Somewhere, in the currently tiny sober and logical part of my mind, I knew tomorrow morning was going to _suck_. But right now, I didn't care. I was feeling freer than ever, and I was really happy – and giggly, if Darcy (who was also extremely drunk) was anything to go by.

Bucky and Steve, although sober, were braving the dance floor, and Steve's lack of dancing experience was evident, while Bucky was somehow tearing it up with swing dancing; Dad was…somewhere…no doubt with a busty girl or three on his arm. Natasha had melted into the shadows in the back of the room, and was no doubt giving someone a creepy feeling. Bruce and Thor were still at the table, and I _think_ they were trying to hold a conversation. Jane and Betty were together, wherever they were. Clint was…I didn't know.

I find out.

After a few hours – I think it was around 11:30? Time was fluid – Darcy ditches me to find her ex-boss, stumbling off into the crowd. I turn around to slam front-first into Clint, in a tight enough spot so that we were pressed flush together.

Now, I should probably mention that my boyfriend and I had experienced major body contact before – we'd been pressed back to back in many battles before, but that was when we were both running too high on adrenaline to realize what we were doing.

This was different. It felt like every single contact point between us was on _fire_ , and for some reason that thrilled me.

This was _new._

"Heyy," I slur, grinning wide. "Fa'cy seein' you 'ere."

"Hey," he breathes. "Can – can I kiss you? Puh-leez?"

"I don' see why not," I mutter. Without further ado, Clint presses his lips to mine – the kiss is sloppy and wet, nothing like any of the kisses we'd shared over the years. It tasted like alcohol – lemon and lime and rum, sweet and sour and tangy all at once.

I loved it.

I set my drink down, wrapping both arms around his neck as he does the same to my waist, both of us pulling the other closer as we deepen the kiss, tongues exploring each other's mouths.

Clint is the first to break the kiss, pulling back just a few inches to look at me, his pupils blown wide and his irises dark. We're both panting heavily, but it takes me a moment to realize that.

"What are we doing?" Clint breathes, his voice lacking slur and gaining a husky quality, his warm breath hitting my skin and leaving goosebumps.

"Whatever we want," I return. "Whatever happens, happens," I declare, feeling daring – although that could just be the fact that Clint was still pressed up against me and we were both thoroughly drunk.

"If you're sure," Clint purrs deeply – I can feel it in his chest – before smashing our lips together again, running his tongue along my lower teeth.

Somehow, we end up stumbling out of the club and back into the limo, never breaking contact once. The ride back to the Tower seems shorter than it is, mainly because Clint's lips and teeth have found the tender skin on the side of my neck and attacked without mercy.

The limo stops with a jerk, forcing us reluctantly apart. We stumble, still drunk and with no morals, into the side entrance of the Tower and then the elevator.

"Your place or mine?" Clint mumbles into my mouth before moving to the soft skin just above the neckline of my dress.

"Yours," I gasp. "I have – a roommate-"

He quickly punches the button for his floor before backing me against the wall of the elevator, his mouth finding mine and his hands squeezing my hips as I run my hands under his shirt, rubbing my fingers against his chiseled chest and abs, hardened by a more than a decade of hard-core training.

The elevator _dings_ softly and we stumble onto his floor, Clint pausing briefly pausing to shed his shirt, socks, and shoes before scooping me up and carrying me reverse-piggy-back style until I was pressed against his bedroom door.

Clint breaks contact to look me dead in the eyes, his grey eyes blown wide and bloodshot, like I'm sure mine were. "Are you sure you want to-?"

"I'm sure," I groan softly, my heart throbbing against my ribs as blood flowed to new places. "Just – please-"

Clint needs no further invitation as he kisses me deeply, opening his bedroom door and walking me backwards again.

My back hits his mattress just as his fingers find my dress zipper and mine find the waistline of his jeans.

It's all a blur from there, but I remember it feeling amazing.


	2. Morning After

I discovered a few things upon regaining consciousness the next morning.

One: my head felt like Thor was using his hammer to drive a red-hot spike into my skull.

Two: I was sore in a few new places.

Three: I was sweaty, but in an oddly good way.

Four (and probably most importantly): I was about as naked as the day I was born.

Well…crap.

I drag myself, kicking and screaming, fully back into consciousness, quickly realizing that I was in a bed – not my own, though – and I wasn't alone. There was an arm slung across my back and someone lying to my left.

I groan softly as I pick my head up off the pillow, stirring the person next to me awake.

"Morning," Clint groans into his pillow. "Ow."

"Agreed," I mumble. I roll over onto my side so that I was facing my boyfriend, who was also naked. I freeze like a deer in the headlights, my breath catching in my throat.

Clint, of course, notices and gently shifts the sheets so his lower body is covered. "Hey, breathe, come on."

I let out a slow breath. "Last night – did we-?"

Mentally, it's like a dam has broken; memories come rushing in. The party, the drinking, the dancing; stumbling back to Clint's floor, the feeling of sweaty skin pressed against sweaty skin, his lips pressed against my throat, my stomach, my hips…

"Have sex?" Clint finishes, pulling me back to reality. "Yes." He gives me a concerned look. "No freak outs?"

I shake my head. "No, no freaking out. It's just…I had hoped to lose my v-card while sober," I admit quietly.

"Oh," Clint hums. "Well then, we should do this again sometime. Sober, preferably."

And then he's gone, the bathroom door closing behind him, leaving me gaping at empty air and wondering what just happened.

Coffee, my brain orders. Coffee first, then we can figure this out.

I roll bonelessly off the bed, wobbling slightly as I make my way out the door, grabbing random clothes and putting them on as I go.

The elevator ride is silent – thankfully, because my head is still pounding – before Jarvis softly informs me that I've arrived on the Common Floor.

I shuffle out, making a beeline for the coffee maker and grabbing the pot of bitter, black coffee that Jarvis had prepared on the way here.

"Um, Taylor?"

I turn around to see everyone – all the Avengers, minus Clint himself – staring at me. Bucky and Natasha are smirking, Steve is blushing, Bruce has a knowing smile on his face, Thor is grinning like a loon, and Dad just has this knowing look on his face, like he expected this.

Except I'm not sure what 'this' is.

"What?" I demand. "Is there something on my face?"

Dad is the first to speak up. "What…are you wearing?"

I look down to see that I'd picked up Clint's t-shirt from last night, along with the boxers he had been wearing.

Great job, a little voice in the back of my head comments. Hit all the 'morning after' clichés, why don't you?

Externally, I just shrug and make my way over to the cabinet where the mugs are stored, grabbing one with ' _Do I LOOK like a morning person to you?'_ inscribed on it and bringing it back over to the coffee machine.

"So, Taylor, did you enjoy Clint's _other_ shaft last night?"

I choke on my coffee for a good ten seconds before slamming my mug down and whirling to face the speaker: Bucky. "What?"

"Did he get to see your gearbox?" Natasha adds, innocent as can be, with a devilish smirk that belied every scrap of innocence she might have had.

I glare between the two of them. "What is wrong with you?"

"A lot," Bucky shrugs, but Natasha tilts her head and gets off her stool, coming around the island and pinpointing me with an intense gaze.

I take an instinctive step back. "What?"

"Let me see your neck," she orders, gently tilting my head away from her, exposing the still-sore skin on the side of my neck. "You could be a leopard, Taylor. You're covered in spots. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…" She taps every bruise, from the hollow of my throat. "Nine. Nine hickeys." She rocks back on her heels. "Clint really did a number on you."

"I'd like to say I did," a smug voice says from behind us, and I look past Natasha at my boyfriend, who was standing in the doorway, freshly showered and clothed with a smug smirk on his face. "And if you'll look, Natasha, the favor was definitely returned." He tugs down the neckline of his t-shirt, revealing a set of matching spots.

"Friends Taylor and Clint were certainly passionate in their intimacy," Thor agrees loudly, and I just look at him for a moment before returning to my coffee as Clint laughs.

I lean against the island counter, looking at my dad over my mug. "You're not complaining."

He gives a shrug, curling his hands around his own mug. "I don't really have any say in it, do I? You're an adult. Just…be careful, know the limits of what you can and can't do, and don't sleep around."

I nod, extending a hand for him to shake. "Deal." He shakes my hand with a grin before returning to his coffee.

"-most of what happened." I tune in to hear the tail end of Clint's sentence, looking over to where he was talking with Bucky. Clint sees me watching and quickly signs I'm getting a timeline for last night.

I nod and hitch a hip up onto the island, cradling my coffee as I listen to Bucky explain – in clear sobriety – what had happened last night. Not that I couldn't remember any of it, because I could, but it was all a bit…fuzzy. Blame the alcohol.

According to Bucky, we all finished our food at about eight, which was when the drinking started. We all went and did our own thing until about 11:30, which was when Clint and I stumbled out, apparently looking "like pigs fighting over a grape." Which meant we got home around midnight. Bruce, and Betty were the next to leave, around fifteen minutes later, with Bruce helping a slightly stumbling Betty into the limo as she babbled about science. Natasha and Dad were next, leaving almost exactly at midnight, with Natasha supporting a half-conscious Tony (interesting…). Steve, Bucky, and Thor were the last to leave, around one a.m., all three completely sober and exhausted.

It was now about 11 in the morning, and the rest of the girls had gone for spa treatments to try and Zen the hangovers away.

After the timeline has been established, the kitchen fell silent again until I broke the silence by hopping off the island and heading for the door, dropping my mug in the sink as I passed. "I'm going to shower," I announce. "I'm all sticky and sweaty."

"I bet you are," Bruce calls after me, and I roll my eyes but choose not to respond vocally.

"Use my floor if you don't want to go all the way down to Darcy's," Clint called just as I was entering the elevator, and I nod and press the button for his floor instead of my own.

One more silent elevator ride later, I arrive back onto my boyfriend's floor, the same one I had left only an hour earlier. I make my way back to the bedroom, grabbing discarded clothes as I went. I go through to the bathroom, stripping off the dirty clothes as I turned on the shower.

I take my time in the shower, letting the hot spray was off all the sweat and grime that had layered one very inch of my skin in the last sixteen hours.

I step back into a fogged-up bathroom, wrapping myself in a towel and running my hands though my hair in an effort to wring out some water before stepping back into the bedroom.

I let out a startled yelp as I come face-to-face with Clint, who gives me an amused grin as he lounges on his bed, looking a bit like a cat, instead of his avian namesake.

"You know, I wouldn't think you had anything to be embarrassed about," he quips. "Not after last night."

I grab one of his pillows and fling it at him, causing his to roll off the bed in an effort to dodge. "You'll never take me alive!"

I chuckle at him before frowning as I tugged the top of my towel up. "I need clothes."

Clint pops back up on the other side of the bed. "I have extra sweats if you want," he offers. "You look good in my clothes."

I study his face for a moment, but he pulls his best puppy-dog eyes and I cave within seconds. "Fine," I sigh dramatically. "It'll save me a trip, anyways."

He gives me a blinding grin and goes over to his dresser, pulling out a t-shirt and some old, faded sweatpants. I grab them and change quickly, smirking at Clint as I pulled the shirt down over my stomach. "Enjoy the show?"

Clint gives me a cheeky grin. "Always."

I roll my eyes and flop back onto the bed, closing my eyes as my boyfriend ran his fingers through my damp hair.

"I like this," I sigh, for once completely content as my boyfriend massaged his nimble archer's fingers against my scalp. "I don't want to leave."

"You don't have to," Clint hums.

I snap my eyes open to give him a questioning look. "What?"

Clint shrugs, looking uncharacteristically sheepish. "I mean, if you ever get tired of living with Darcy, I wouldn't say no to sharing a floor with you. If you want to, I mean. You don't have to."

I blink at him and reach up to squeeze his hand. "Hey, calm down. It doesn't sound like a bad idea."

"So is that a yes?" he asks hopefully.

I pause, biting my lip. "Not...necessarily," I start, and his face droops a bit. "It's not a no!" I backpedal. "I just can't make a decision this big this quickly."

"That's alright," he reassures me, his face brightening again. "Just think about it."

"Of course," I nod as my eyes slip closed again. "Now, please resume the rubbing of my scalp. Feels good."

Clint lets out an amused huff as he stretches out next to me, his hands winding their way back into my hair.

I liked this moment - I was safe, I was happy, and I had an amazing boyfriend.

And something to think over.

A lot of things to think over.


End file.
